Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Pelee weekend! Day 2

The Saturday was much slower than the Friday in terms of birds and Dave and I worked hard all day to turn up a paltry 90 species or so. Normally by early May, 120 species in a long day of birding isn't too uncommon. Birds were few and far between, but the weather was good and it was a lot of fun just walking around! Winds were fairly strong out of the west so we concentrated our efforts a bit more on the east side. However we still did a long walk along west beach at one point, seeing very little!

West Beach Turk riding the wind

It was nice seeing our first of the year Blackburnian Warbler, Ovenbird, Baltimore Oriole etc. The Blackburnian was a stunning bird that was part of a "neotropical migrant swarm" in a Cottonwood, along with a group of Baltimore Orioles and other warblers. It's always fun at Pelee, even on a slow day...

Concession E at dawn:
1 Willet (continuing)

Great Blue Heron - Onion Fields

Point Pelee National Park:
-all three scoters off the east beach, surprisingly
-Eared Grebe off of Shuster (known bird)
-year birds!! Swainson's Thrush, Baltimore Oriole, Ovenbird, Blackburnian and Chestnut-sided, etc
-Eastern Meadowlark flying around the tip

Beige, Black and White

Onion Fields in late afternoon
-William It was still at the regular place along Concession E
-surprise Eastern Meadowlark! :) a bird I don't see a ton of at Pelee...

EAME - Conc. E

We walked around the entire Couture Dyke and birded the shorebird cell as well. I find that the Couture Dyke does not get checked nearly enough, even during peak birder season of early-mid May. Who knows, there could be an Anhinga, or Black-necked Stilt, or flock of Wood Storks just hanging out! We did not strike gold on this trip but a singing Ovenbird, some Soras, and a few hundred shorebirds (just the regular species) made things interesting.

There you go, that's all she wrote for day 2. We were hoping that day 3, our last at Pelee, would bring in a whole new batch of birds!